Greenpeace Warned the Japanese Government weeks before

Greenpeace raised flags about legitimate radiation dangers long before the government or TEPCO acknowledged them. Greenpeace, for instance, pressured the government to evacuate the village of Iitate in late March, when the group’s instruments detected harmful levels of contamination. It took weeks for the government to act on the findings. Greenpeace also found higher-than-acceptable radiation in vegetable gardens in nearby villages, which people were eating from because no one had warned them not to.

Teuling recently spent five weeks testing marine life aboard Greenpeace’s research vessel, the Rainbow Warrior. When she found radiation levels in seaweed and fish well above the legal limit (and as far as 40 miles from the plant) she urged the government to step up its ocean monitoring program, which has been surprisingly haphazard. The day after Greenpeace announced these alarming findings, the science ministry issued a statement with a similar warning.